On Feb. 18, 2001, over 17 years go, Robert Hanssen, a longtime FBI special agent, was arrested for passing classified information on to the Russians through the use of several “dead drop” sites at many local Vienna parks. Hanssen lived on Talisman Drive, only a short walk away from Wolftrap Elementary School.

Robert Hanssen joined the FBI in 1976 after working as an investigator for the Chicago Police Department. His deceit began in 1979, when he informed the Soviets that one of their generals, Dmitri Polyakov, was actually a CIA informant who had been spying for the Americans since the 1960’s.

Hanssen was rewarded for his betrayal. While working for Moscow on and off over the years, he was paid $600,000 in cash and diamonds, with another $800,000 supposedly held for him in a Russian bank. In all, by the time of his arrest in 2001, he had collected an estimated $1.4 million. As a church-going father of six, it is widely believed that he was motivated by the monetary aspect rather than any ideological beliefs.

When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, Hanssen stopped spying. However, in 1999, Hanssen resumed his double-agent career, working for a post-Soviet Russian intelligence agency.

The FBI suspected there was a mole in their ranks, and in 2000, paid an ex-Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (the Soviet Union’s main security agency) officer $7 million to procure information from the intelligence agency that Hanssen worked for, helping to secure his identity as the traitor.

In February of 2001, Hanssen was arrested at Foxstone Park, after dropping off a plastic trash bag full of classified documents. Along with Foxstone Park, Hanssen used Nottoway Park, Idylwood Park, and Lewinsville Park as drop off sites.

Hanssen’s arrest was a shock to the Vienna community and to the whole country. His wife knew nothing of his treachery, undergoing a polygraph test and multiple interviews with the FBI. She lived in their house until 2011, at which point she decided to sell the house. It was difficult to sell — nobody wanted to move into the house that had such a convoluted history.

Allison Costner (’18) lives on Talisman Drive; she and her family moved in around six months after Hanssen’s arrest. She learned about her infamous neighbor while on a visit to the International Spy Museum with her family.

“As we made our way through [the International Spy Museum], in one room there was a house that I recognized … my parents didn’t know how to tell us we had a neighbor who was a spy for Russia so my brother and I found out in the Spy Museum,” Costner said.

Costner recalls selling Girl Scout cookies to Hanssen’s wife and petting their dog on her way home from school — the same dog that Hanssen used as a cover while walking in Foxstone Park.

“I didn’t realize the dog was involved until I read an article that said he would walk him,” Costner said.

Nottoway Park, another drop site, is well-known among the Vienna community as the host of many family picnics, youth league sporting events, and more. Nick Ruszkowski (’19) used to go on walks with his family in the park when he was young.

“It’s wild to think that I could have been walking over government secrets,” Ruszkowski said.